DL Open Thread: Thursday, March 27, 2025

Yet One More ‘Disappearance’, Captured On Tape:

As Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk made her way to an interfaith center to break the Ramadan fast on Tuesday, plainclothes agents, some masked, descended on her. She screamed as an unmasked agent in a hooded sweatshirt grabbed her, security video shows. Within about a minute, the agents whisked her away in handcuffs.

Ozturk, 30, is a Fulbright scholar doing a PhD in child study and human development on an F-1 student visa at the Boston-area university, her lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in an email. “We should all be horrified at the way DHS spirited away Rumeysa in broad daylight,” she wrote, adding that Ozturk has not been accused of committing any crime.

A federal district judge, considering a petition from her lawyers, ordered agents on Tuesday not to move the student out of Massachusetts without advance notice. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee locator page showed Ozturk’s location as Louisiana late Wednesday.

If there’s any justice, which admittedly there isn’t, these legalized thugs will be thrown in prison one day, along with the people who ordered Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest.  If indeed it was an arrest, and not the kidnapping it appears to be.

Yet Another ‘Disappearance’, Not Captured On Tape.

Report: Political Appointees Ordered That DOD Officials Use Signal, In Direct Flouting Of The Law:

A high level information security source inside the Department of Defense has informed me that a month ago they were ordered by political appointees to ignore information security regulations and install Signal on government phones for senior leaders.

This story likely confirms that Signal is a primary means of communications for Trump Administration senior leaders in direct violation of the Presidential Records Act, the Espionage Act, and numerous national security regulations. It appears that much of our national security communications are vulnerable to foreign intelligence agencies to access at the highest levels of our government.

This means that even as DOD sent a memo out warning against the use of Signal the same organization had authorized, and demanded, it’s use across the DOD. The messaging app is popular because its encrypted but most importantly allows disappearing messages on a schedule. This is a direct violation of the Presidential Records Act that requires preservation of all Executive Branch records.

Just a ‘blunder’?  I report, you decide.  Speaking of which, man, this Karoline Leavitt.  I mean, she’s clearly auditioning for a future role on Fox News, but even they might not be able to lower their standards that much.

Trump Halts Deliveries To Food Bank Of Delaware.  Because, you know, that’s what America voted for:

The Food Bank of Delaware has been told the federal government is canceling 19 deliveries from the U.S. Department of Agriculture scheduled for April through July.

The canceled deliveries equal to 29% of food that was scheduled to be delivered from the USDA the rest of the year – and would equal 900,000 meals given out to food insecure Delawareans.

Food Bank of Delaware Cathy Kanefsky president and CEO says the timing – which would never be good – is even worse now.

“It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. People are challenged to put food on their tables already. The people that we see coming to the Food Bank now, versus 3 or 4 years ago, are people that are working 2 and 3 jobs at a time, but they can’t make ends meet because everything has gotten so much more expensive. And I’ve tried to make the point as often as I can, food for us to purchase, food for the Food Bank to purchase, is also higher,” said Kanefsky.

Jeez, couldn’t the State Senate at least have worked out a quid pro quo with Elon on this?  You know, something like ‘Elon, you can have your 50 billion, can you just make sure that Delawareans don’t starve because of your cuts?’  Nah, didn’t occur to them.

What do you want to talk about?